It’s grim. But how will a strike make it better?

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You don’t put your livelihood at risk without a clear plan of action and yesterday’s strikers just don’t have one

On Tuesday morning in Wapping, as Times colleagues discussed the Autumn Statement, a cloud as black as any I’ve seen settled above the unfinished Shard, the new tower rising over London. It didn’t take a poet to see the metaphor of a dark future overshadowing a cocksure past. Within the hour the Chancellor revealed just how bad things were and just how bad they’d stay.

A day later I passed a group of pickets outside the North London comprehensive that educated both the Miliband brothers. Arranging their placards in the bright, cold breakfast-time air, the strikers were young, clean and